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update on disposable work surface

updated fri 15 jul 05

 

Rachel Campbell on wed 13 jul 05


Hi all,

I wrote a few days ago asking for advice as to a disposable work surface...
I'd been asked to lead 200 kids in a clay "craft" for VBS at my church and
was looking for a cheap, easy to clean up surface that would allow the kids
to roll coils etc. without the clay sticking or the surface degrading.

Well, we had our clay day at VBS yesterday, and it went well... (Other
than having to be dressed up in "Bible Clothes" in 90 degree weather,
anyway; we're "recreating" a 1st century Jerusalem marketplace and all the
grownups are in costume :-) ... Anyway, we had 217 kids in all, in sets of
40-55, with about 10 other adults helping out. Completely crazy, but the
kids had fun, and were definitely creative with their little slab/coil pots.

I received awesome advice offline to use heavy brown craft paper, the kind
you get in a roll... I found it at Staples, like the postal wrapping
paper. It rolled out just the right width to cover the tables, and it held
up through 4 sessions of kids rolling out coils etc. (Ideally I'd
probably change the paper in between sessions but we had about 5 minutes,
just enough time to clean up and get together the next session's
clay.) But cleanup was quick and easy, and the surface didn't cause any
difficulties for the kids' work. And at $2.50 for the roll, ya can't beat
the price (one roll was plenty to cover the tables).

Just thought I'd pass on the verdict! :-)

--Rachel in Odenton, MD
Can I just say my 5 yr old was so cute? I told the kids to roll out
"snakes" so being the literal child that he is, he carved a smiley face in
one end of each of his coils (so his snake was smiling)... then when he was
putting the coils on the pot, he didn't want the face squished, so he
stuck the smiling end of the coil out of the pot, then started the next
one ... So his coil pot has little smiling snake faces sticking out of
it. Mom loved it, anyway. That one's a keeper! :-)